Moscow Polytech President Vladimir Miklushevskii: “Our Ambitions – Platform Solutions for Cars”
Development of new cars, project activity, new cooperation agreements – Moscow Polytech president Vladimir Miklushevskii talked on this and much more with the “Vedomosti” edition.
Moscow Polytech partnered with the technological center for urban technology robotization under Skolkovo. What tasks do you face and what can be considered a results are expected under this cooperation?
This Center was established by “Merkator Holding” and “Avtonomika” to test and scale innovation projects in the sphere of city cleaning and maintenance. Under this project, Moscow Polytech is to take up the role of a technological partner that is ensure expert-analytical and engineering-methodological support to the developers to ensure the fastest entry of products to the market.
Our University is the main Russian industry-specific university in the sphere of mechanical engineering. The last 5 years we have been stepping up our efforts in developing innovation transport systems, electric and highly automated vehicles. In addition to that, Moscow Polytech has one of the leading schools in the industry of passenger car manufacturing. Our Advanced Engineering School for electric vehicles (new structural subdivision of the University) develops technical and layout solutions, creates unique vehicle design, and carries out car tests.
Can you name a couple of elaborations?
So far, there has been developed an unmanned transport platform – Smart-shuttle. This line includes a passenger and lorry prototype. It`s worry paying special attention to MIG R that has set a record of 210,6 km/h in the course of “Baikal Mile” speed festival. The project was implemented with the participation of professional pilots – Mikhail Mikhin and Anastasia Nifontova. There was also another project implemented under cooperation with the bicycle and motorcycle manufacturer “Velomotors”. Moscow Polytech team has electrified the 4-wheeler having preserved technical specifications of the original model and introduced additional improvements.
Moscow Polytech has been implementing the “Available Car” project in the framework of the “Priority 2030” program. Can you tell about the details of the project and what stage it is on now?
We have been engaged in electric vehicle manufacturing for 16 years now. During this period of time Moscow Polytech has formed a team of professionals so that today it`s more of an engineering bureau to develop and build electric vehicles, such as electric bikes, for example. Our engineers participate in various European contests where they took prize-winning places. And now, this team is working at our AES for electric transport. Their main goals is to switch from student prototypes to pre-series ones. If you`re ambitious and want to work with the large-scale industry you have to do everything right from the start, follow certain developing benchmarks and rules. Apart from that, you have to take into consideration the technological capacities of your potential partner.
Our ambitions are platform solutions for cars. So far, we`ve been specializing in small L7-class cars (with their mass not exceeding 400kg in a no-load condition excluding the battery weight – in case of an electric vehicle – “Vedomosti”).
What Russian enterprises do you cooperate with?
One of our key partners is an enterprise from Kaliningrad – “Avtotor”. It`s one of the largest Russian enterprises in passenger car manufacturing and assembly.
What does cooperation with “Avtotor” imply specifically?
Moscow Polytech has been cooperating with “Avtotor” since 2021. In the course of this time, we have implemented a project to develop two general carriers of installations for cars. These prototypes will be used by the “Avtotor” specialists to juxtapose, trim and test power unit components, as well as components of power unit as a part of L7, M1 and M1+ electric cars.
The next stage is to produce the Russian compact vehicle. Before the beginning of the special military operation “Avtotor” was the largest contract car assembler of in the world. They now want to put on a production their own L7 electric car. There are also somewhat smaller but as important localization-related tasks. If you open the Russian strategy for car manufacturing industry development, you`ll see that localization is one of the main priorities. We have already established a center for reverse engineering, bought expensive software from Siemens and “KAMAZ” that allows to create digital twins. Digital twin is a program that can simulate various car operations modes. It`s made to minimize field tests and potential errors. For instance, to carry out a crush test, it`s necessary to crush 10 cars. BY creating a digital twin and “crushing” during the digital crush test we`ll be able make this number 10 times less. Nowadays, no serious car manufacturer does anything without a digital twin.
Do you also produce racing cars?
We have developing this direction since 2017. All limiting modes of operation are tested on racing cars since the car at a racing track is operating under the supercharges. The best engineering solutions provided by the known auto groups are made with the help of racing prototypes. In fact they are of a great importance for the implementation of the best practices into the ordinary car mass manufacturing. This really saves us a lot of time and money because you`ll have to pay a lot to hold tests on a real racetrack.
We are basically offering educational programs together straight with the employment.
According to the Ministry of Education, based on the results of the last campaign the most popular universities to apply for state-funded places for bachelor and specialist programs were MIREA, MEI and Moscow Polytech. How many applications have been made and what`s the tendency over the last 2-3 years?
This year, 101 000 applications for 2,445 state-funded and 2,276 contract places for bachelor and specialist have been made. Compared to the previous year, the growth amounted to 35%. The popularity of Moscow Polytech among students can be explained by the quality of education among other things and practical orientation. All curriculums from the first year to the last one include a discipline called “Project Activity”. More and more universities introduce “Project Activity” but we became one of the first universities that integrated this subject. This happened in 2014.
There are two key issues when it comes to studying at the university – the level of knowledge and motivation. It`s very important to catch your “client”. If a person is not motivated, most probably they won`t study well. In the end, they`ll lose their time and money – either personal, or provided by the government.
We highly value customer-focused approach. There is a notion called “Student Journey”, which is a client customer`s way that the students have to take. We have developed and introduced a set of events to improve this approach. It starts the moment enrollees participate in Open Day events and ends with acquiring a diploma and being employed. In fact, we`re selling educational programs with employment.
